Monthly Archives: July 2011

Went to visit Carol Lindhorse again last month in Cave Junction, Oregon. We hiked and talked about how she got started, how she does it, why she does it. This woman warms my heart.

Separately, if you ever find yourself in Cave Junction make sure to visit Taylor’s Sausage – some of the best homemade beef jerky. And if your staying, try the tree houses in the neighboring hippie town of Takilma.

Once, on a recent drive through Montana, I remembered talk of a guy who made bikes around Missoula. I tracked him down and he invited us over his place at the base of the Mission Mountains in St. Ignatius where he lives on a farm with his wife and daughter, their dog and a menagerie of beautiful barnyard animals.

We took a drive up to the buffalo fields beyond the town where I learned that Ben was from New York City, had spent time in the West during his college years, fell in love with it and his future wife, and decided to stay, to raise farm and family. It seemed like the life a lot of us just dream of.

We drove up to the top of the fields, saw the entire region from a vista, took pictures of buffalo and each other, before heading back for burgers, shakes, a good fire and a night in their guest cabin.

Hard not to stop when you see a little gem like this along the back roads. I will say I was distracted by the sudden hail following the sudden sunshine following the sudden snowfall following the sudden wind gusts, and had to make a quick u-turn after passing it. Wild weather up there this time of year.

We made our way into the shop and found it empty. Walked over to the adjacent cabin and gave a timid knock – I know you city folks like to plaster your walls with flea found taxidermy but it’s sometimes hard to know what to expect of a man who litters his home with dead things, dead things he most likely made that way. Old man got off the couch with rifle in hand. I got to admit my stomach sank a little. He put in the closet and shuffled to the door to greet us. Couldn’t have been an nicer, gentler old man. I think he started in the 1980s to keep busy. I can get on with a carver having been a stone carver myself in a past life. We chatted him up a bit, bought a few $10 feathers and headed down the road – all sunshine.